Council boss earns 8 times lowest paid staff

SOLIHULL Council’s chief executive will still earn over eight times more than the authority’s lowestpaid workers, even after efforts to boost salaries at the bottom end of the scale.

The council’s pay policy statement confirmed that Nick Page, its most senior officer, will draw a salary of £154,950 from April next year.

The pay packet, which is just slightly ahead of the Prime Minister’s, dwarfs the lowest paid band for 2019/20, which has a salary range of £17,364 to 18,065. The report, presented to the week’s remuneration committee, said that the multiple between the lowest paid full-time equivalent employee and the chief executive would be one to 8.6 in the next financial year. Although the gulf has narrowed slightly compared with the 1:9.4 multiple from April 2017.

Cllr Robert Hulland, the committee’s chairman, said the council had “bottom-loaded” recent pay increases and that these rises had “helped immensely”.

“That is so those on the lowest salaries get the better pay rises, I think we’ve seen up to nine per cent this year,” he said.

Maggie Hurt, an independent member of the committee, had asked if the council had a target for reducing the gap. She was advised it did not.

Mr Page took the top job in 2014, after predecessor Mark Rogers moved to Birmingham City Council. The salary does not include additional payments for acting as returning officer.